Iron Man Adventures
by dryskim
Summary: He's Iron Man, fighting the bad guys with armored fisticuffs and repulsor rays. In Chapter Three, Tony Stark and Yinsen make their daring escape from the clutches of the evil Mandarin with help from their crudely constructed Mark One Iron Man suit.
1. Mile High Club

"Pep, do you know any words that start with-"

A low growl emanated from her lips, a sound so at odds with her sharp, attractive features. For a short moment Tony had to wonder if someone had replaced his personal assistant with an angry badger.

Probably Happy. The man was shifty...

...unless it was Justin Hammer.

Or Pepper wasn't really replaced with an angry badger but a complex cybernetic sex robot sent to seduce him, then suck his brains out through a straw.

On second thought, that'd be kinda hot.

And then she brought out her serious face, and ripped his StarkPhone from his grasp, "Tony, this is important. Maybe it's not important to you, or maybe you're not interested, but this is your company. At least appear to be interested."

"I am interested," Tony countered, slipping on a grin. The same grin that had appeared on countless tabloids over the years, also the same grin that woos so many willing women to his bed. Or maybe that's just the fact that's he's one of the richest men on the planet.

He honestly prefered to think it was due to tales of performance getting around in the inner circles of super-modeldom.

Tony continued, "In fact, I am very interested. Super interested even."

Pepper cocked an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Really," Tony repeated, "And I understand where you're coming from. You're hurt, you feel betrayed, and I understand. And really, I'm glad you're showing such an interested in the affairs of things-"

"Are you honestly trying to turn this around on me?"

"-but I can assure you, that my desire to kick Rhodey's ass at Words with Friends is in no way affected my ability to listen to you rant and rave about the state of the company-"

Her face twisted into something unfitting of a gorgeous woman like herself, but before she could do more than open her mouth in protest, he swallowed her words up as he continued undeterred.

"-so if you want, quiz me," Tony said, then added as an afterthought, "Though it hurts my widdle heart that you don't trust me." Hell, he even brought out the puppy dog eyes.

"You are not seriously pouting."

"I could add in a single tear of sorrow if that would sway you."

"Don't make me punch you."

The pair made their way across the tarmac, Pepper's heels aggressively clacking as she started on her laundry list of topics to quiz him on. In hindsight, he was kicking himself for saying she could quiz him. Plus, she had kept his phone so the boredom of walking someplace without an electronic device of some sort in-hand was coming full force.

So he concentrated instead on the clicking of her shoes against the pavement, wondering why she'd be hauling him to the airport in a pencil skirt and heels. Then he recognized the small army of reporters and paparazzi awaiting his arrival.

That would explain the heels.

Her elbow drove into his side, and he yelped in surprise. Thankfully no one had caught that little bit of girlish squeaking on camera. Her eyes locked on him, "You spaced out again," her eyes rolled, "Like always," with a sigh, she flicked the surface of her tablet, bringing up the design specs for Stark Industries latest toys, "Give me a rundown what we're demoing in South Korea."

Without a pause, he retorted, "We're dusting off the old Jericho designs. Standard armament are six rapid fire, long range, anti-anything missiles-"

* * *

"-so compared to your rate of fire on conventional artillery, that's a major improvement. Same goes for the use of multiple kinds of ordnance at once, you could decimate an armored division and an infantry company with the same battery. Designate the targets using satellite imagery, and boom, you can clear the bad guys off your lawn without ever leaving your easy chair. The targeting software deals with the rest on the fly."

"And what happens if the targeting software is rendered inoperable?" to his credit, the South Korean general spoke better english than most, he could even pronounce L's. Which for Tony was a spectacular development to toss up on his Twitter, just like all the other spectacular developments that popped up on his Twitter.

"Well, the system is designed specifically not to fail. However, in the event of a failure of that sort, as long as you've got boys on the ground to designate targets you'll be able to guide them in. Of course, then it's not nearly as fire-and-forget, but stuff still ends up exploding."

All things went according to plan, hands were shaken, and backs were patted. In short, everything went without a hitch. The general would happily await his first shipment of missiles - which would be arriving by the end of the week - and hold a 'trial run' of sorts before deciding if he wished to sign a full-contract for a small armada of Jericho missiles. Considering who designed said missiles, Tony was reasonably assured that Stark Industries would be receiving a bulk order by the end of the week.

It was a good day to be Tony Stark.

Then again, it's always a good day to be Tony Stark.

Especially when Tony Stark happens to be the owner of a damn fine private jet with a host of stewardesses in semi-revealing outfits, and that's before they undid a few buttons and hiked up their skirts. Nevermind a bar serving quality drinks of similar caliber to the best in the world.

Still, after seeing more fun-mounds than the guys behind Girls Gone Wild, it became sort of an everyday occurrence. A very pleasing occurrence but nevertheless an occurrence. That and his self-control was much stronger than anyone ever gave him credit for, he was a womanizer, but that didn't mean he just groped every breast in sight. He asked permission first.

So while one of the stewardesses offered him a carefully prepared drink, he accepted it with practiced ease while his other hand calmly flicked through his contacts. Which, despite all his liaisons and the fact he ran one of America's top businesses, was quite short. Then again, with the amount of women he only met once their wasn't a whole lot of reason to retain contact information. Selecting Pepper from the list he tapped the call icon and pressed the phone to his ear, gesturing for the stewardess acting as DJ to bring her music down to a volume conducive to conversation.

"Hey, Pep, I just-"

Pepper interluded with a string of incomprehensible gibberish before she's awake enough to render human speech, "Tony," he can almost hear her squinting at the clock, "It's - why are you calling me at three in the morning?"

"I just wanted to call and tell you everything went fine," he answers, sitting his drink down beside him before plucking the toothpick-and-olive ensemble from the glass. With olive and stick in hand, he turns to the stewardess seated next to him on the bench. He gets his confirmation when she leans in close and wraps a pair of luscious lips around the olive and pulls it free of it's imprisonment. Tony notes that she is indeed a woman of considerable oral talents.

"You never call," Pepper grumbles through the phone, "What did you do this time?"

"What makes you think I've done something? Maybe I'm just calling in to check on my favorite personal assistant."

"Now you're trying to butter me up," she murmurs, "You're up to something, and I know it, I just don't know-" a yawn cuts her thought in half before she resumes, "-what."

"Hide the breakables, Pepper, I'm coming home."

"Mhmmm.."

* * *

Tony Stark's private jet wasn't built for speed, no, it's built for comfort. With that notion in mind, the much heavier, louder, and less smooth flying plane was able to catch up, managing an intercept course. A converted military cargo plane from a time when the United States and China were on much better terms, the heavy plane continued to lumber after the smaller, sleeker, Stark Industries customized aircraft.

Situated in the rear of the plane, stood a row of six men, all dressed in combat gear with submachine guns strapped across their chests. Each man was presently in the process of adjusting their oxygen masks, having a few scant minutes until the jet below was in position for their next move.

Raza, the team leader for this mission, glanced up as the light to his left flickered to life, an eerie green falling over the six. He nodded at his team and moved to the edge of the ramp.

And then he jumped.

For a few short seconds he was falling unassisted, plummeting like a rock. A second passed. And then another, and then, he yanked the handle on his harness. From the pack on his back, his parachute exploded into existence, slowing his descent considerably. Now came the hard part of landing successfully on the plane, and forcefully taking it over.

He ditched his chute just short of the wing, letting his momentum carry him the rest of the distance. His boots danced across the surface of the wing as he forced himself down, despite the air current ripping at him, he managed to slam his glove down on the wing and his momentum was stopped painfully with a sudden jerk. Despite his arm's desire to tear out of it's socket, the nano-glove stayed glued to the surface. With a grunt, Raza brought his other hand up onto the wing, and once more the glove stuck firmly in-place.

The nano-gloves ran on a (to Raza) magical technology based around the same basic concept as to how a Gecko scaled walls, allowing the user to plant his hands on a surface and with a slight clench of his/her fingers, firmly glue themselves to the wall. Originally designed with the United States military in mind, a few sets of the gloves had gotten 'misplaced' and wound up in the hands of his benefactor.

The fact that Stark Industries was written across the back of the gloves only served to add some dramatic irony to the whole hijacking.

The other commandos latched onto the plane as well, assembling with Raza near the wing. With his team ready, Raza spread the specialized breaching charge along the surface of the plane, making sure it was good and secure before taking a few large steps back. The charges were designed to only explode inward, but Raza wasn't inclined to test this theory while standing on the wing of a plane flying at 50,000 feet.

The charges exploded, ripping a relatively symmetrical circle in the planes high-quality metal skin. And the team of terrorists quickly made their way inside, ripping their submachine guns from their kit as they landed inside the plane.

* * *

Up to his neck with half-naked women in the back of the plane, Tony barely heard the dull whump of the explosives over the sensual purring in his ear. By the time he'd fought through the wall of stewardesses trying to bury him alive, his security team was rushing in to secure him.

This wasn't good.

* * *

Raza gestured for two of his men to branch off and secure the cockpit. A dirty task, but an important one. No, not just important, the most important. If they couldn't secure the cockpit and land the plane in friendly territory, the whole mission would be a pointless endeavor. The two men broke off, while Raza and the rest of his squad pushed towards the rear of the plane. They had a solid idea where Tony Stark _should_ be, so they'd sweep the plane, and force his back up against the wall.

Raza and his team encountered only minor resistance initially, Stark having an overall rather small security detail with him - and they weren't exactly expecting a mid air hijacking, so surprise was also assisting Raza in his war. After the first trio of men in suits dropped to the floor in bloody heaps, the majority of the team materialized around every corner. Raza and his team, however, had come prepared. Alongside their body armor, Nano-gloves, and submachine guns - they also brought a healthy number of flash grenades. For every pocket of resistance, Raza's team would deploy a flashbang, and then sweep through the stunned security with overwhelming firepower.

Eventually, only one door remained, and Raza and his men stacked up.

* * *

In movies, Tony always assumed the slow-motion effect was put into place to make things more badass. Thus, when games used breaching charges, shit was slowed down so it'd be more awesome - and to give the player more time to shoot people in the face. The only problem was, in fiction, the hero is never on the wrong side of the door. Soap MacTavish never had a door explode in his face, he always blew up doors in other peoples' faces.

So when Tony's door to his private part of the plane exploded into bits of shrapnel and plane bits, he jumped roughly a foot and a half in the air. Favreau, one of Tony's team, snapped up his pistol training it's barrel on the remnants of the doorway.

A quiet tink brought the eerie silence, a black cylinder spiraling across the floor before bumping into one of Tony's guard's fine Italian shoes. Favreau spun on his heel, wrapping a massive arm around Tony's waist and forcing him facedown into the carpet. Favreau's heavy frame immediately following, pressing down on Tony.

The flashbang exploded, and being a quality Stark Industry's design that got eventually sold by the military to the lowest bidder - the thing did a sufficient job of knocking everybody on their collective asses and leaving them with a painful ringing in their ears.

Favreau rolled off of Tony, who immediately let out a held breath. Favreau, fighting the effects of the 'bang' part of the flashbang was dealing with a total loss of hearing - if he'd been facing the grenade, he'd also be dealing with a case of blindness. Thus was the case for Downey, who was stumbling around trying to fight both a case of blindness, and a screwed up inner ear leaving him essentially worthless to the team. Paltrow was seemingly doing okay herself, though she was using Tony's bed to steady herself as she tried to regain her footing.

* * *

Raza was the first through the door, snapping up his submachine gun as he cleared the doorway. His sights centered on the man nearest the door, he clearly was quite stunned and made an easy target. A short burst of automatic fire ripped through his fine suit jacket, puffs of red exploding out of his back as he staggered back against the bullets, he flopped back onto Stark's fine linens in a bloody heap.

The woman behind him shouted something, but with his brain running ten-thousand miles per minute, Raza wasn't able to translate her words. With relative assurance that his number two would easily deal with the female, Raza snapped his submachine gun to the supine security member and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Unable to actually assist, Tony could only really watch as Favreau was riddled with a long burst of weapons fire, and Paltrow collapsed to the floor as bullets ripped through her torso. Paltrow dropped on the other side of the bed, out of sight, but Tony already knew she was dead before she hit the ground. Favreau was entirely still aside from the slight rise and fall of his chest to indicate he was still breathing, albeit small, shallow, ragged breaths.

Tony made a mad grasp for Favreau's sidearm, deciding he wasn't going to let the tabloids run articles about how he just rolled over and died when lunatics slaughtered his staff and tried to take over his plane. He'd pull his best President Harrison Ford in Air Force One, and go down shooting.

* * *

Acknowledging Stark's blatant grab for a dropped gun, Raza took two long strides forward and smashed his boot into the weapon designer's outstretched arm. Raza made sure the barrel of his submachine gun was all but touching Stark's nose, a very pointed nonverbal statement.

The Mandarin would be quite pleased with their success.


	2. In a Cave!

"Come on, Pep, just one picture, it's all I'm asking for."

She glanced up from her work, annoyance radiating from her pristine features as she forced a renegade lock of hair behind her ear. Apparently his laid back nature about this upcoming business arrangement was beginning to grind her gears, "And I told you no, I'm working. Like you should be."

Tony shrugged, fiddling with their new prototype StarkPhone, it wouldn't even be on the market for another six months - and even then, his would be the only one in hot rod red, "Doesn't the old saying going something like, 'I'll work when I'm dead and have fun while I'm alive'?" There was a momentary quiet in the car, "Okay, I swear I heard that somewhere."

Pepper let out an exasperated sigh, and returned to her tablet, making rapid edits to his schedule for the upcoming week, already setting aside extra time in-case his trip to South Korea extended longer than planned - which considering who was sitting across from her in the car, would be a likely proposition.

"You'd be the first woman photographed by the most advanced phone on the face of the planet," Tony said, "It'll only take a second."

"You know what? If it'll make you happy, if it'll make you stop bothering me so I can get this work done, then sure, take a picture," Pepper snapped both in terms of temper and tone.

With a grin, Tony snapped a quick picture of his razzled assistant.

* * *

That'd been a week ago.

Now it felt like an eternity ago.

For Tony, locked away in the damp dungeon of some ancient castle with an all too talkative guard, he suddenly had a very good understanding of what hell his PA had to live through while working under him.

Goddamnit, if he survived this, the woman deserved a raise.

This time when Raza, Tony's guard for a roughly three hour period during the midafternoon strolled in he had a crimson object in his hands. With his nose firmly buried in the screen the terrorist nearly tripped over the stool set up for the current guard - sadly, he managed to catch himself in time to snort at the innocent piece of wood for threatening to impede his walking.

It took Tony a moment to recognize the object for what it was.

A phone.

_His phone_, to be precise.

Having given the stool a swift kick, Raza settled down to chuckle with amusement as he flicked at something on the screen. After a long silence with the only sound emanating from the phone's tiny speakers, from the sounds of it, Raza was engaged in an action packed game of Angry Birds.

Of course, the man with the blood of countless people on his hands would pick the game involving adorable birds.

The terrorist glanced up, having just completed another successful level for a brief moment he locked eyes with the inventor, Raza rapped his fingers off the phone's outer casing, "Y'know, this is a nice phone," he said, "This is a nice fuckin' phone."

Raza leaned in, glancing down at the phone as a sly grin contorted his face into something befitting the cheshire cat, "Now what is this? Hmmm?" The terrorist rotated the phone around so that Tony could get a good view of the screen.

It was the picture he'd snapped of Pepper in the car on the way to the fateful business trip that landed him in some castle dungeon in some part of the world situated between Jurassic Park and the ass-crack of the world. The best he could estimate, somewhere in China.

Raza continued, "Now who is this? Is this the invincible Tony Stark's latest squeeze?" The man cast a glance down at the image again, "I gotta say, she does look like she'd be quite the fuck. I mean, if she's anything like all the other women in your life, isn't that all she is, a good fuck? A pair of nice perky tits and a tight ass on legs?" Raza smirked, "I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I 'borrowed' this picture, right? My imagination isn't quite what it used to be, and I think this pretty lady would serve my needs just fine-"

For a man who'd never had to actually work a day in his life, whose only form of concentrated physical fitness was sex and sashaying around clubs looking for his next hook-up. For a man who'd only taken up Wing Chun Kung Fu just for the sake of hooking up with one of the hotties in the class, Tony Stark was never labeled the most athletic of men - or the most healthy.

But damnit, when the man felt compelled - he could move.

Before Raza could finish his sentence, before the prototype StarkPhone had slipped from his greasy fingers and clattered to the stone floor, he found himself with arms wrapped firmly around his head and a very angry Mr. Stark attached.

Raza had never had the easiest time learning English, he'd struggled with it, quite frankly - and so he strained against the man's grip, not helped by Stark's slamming his head against the metal bars while he continued to growl incoherently. For all of Raza's straining, he couldn't even tell if Stark was even speaking English at this point. Then again, with arms trying to choke the life out of him while simultaneously forcing his face into the cell bars - the meaning was rather clear cut.

This whole charade was abruptly cut short with the arrival of another individual - tall, with sharp features, and long dark hair that hung to the man's shoulders. His face was worn, like it'd see years of hardship and toil, deep lines woven into the flesh. The man neither smiled nor frowned, appearing, quite simply, indifferent. On his face he wore a beard, the kind that had seen only marginal care, slightly scraggly with the occasional hint of gray. Dressed in robes of emerald with patterns of gold adorning the surface, the man strode into the room, his feet seemingly making no sound as he walked.

In a way, he looked a bit like what a more asian version of Jesus Christ. Or at least, that's what Tony found himself drawing comparisons to. Of course, Jesus didn't have a habit of kidnapping people and leaving them in his cellar to rot while his disciples tormented their captives with hints of the people they'd left so far behind.

Tony's grip on Raza loosened, and the man took hasty steps away, "Mandarin...I..."

The Mandarin only offered Raza an aside glance, "Quiet. Remove yourself from my sight."

The Mandarin continued to advance towards Tony's holding cell while Raza made a hasty retreat from the room, a steely gaze washed over the billionaire as the Mandarin scrutinized his captive. After a long, silent moment, the Mandarin spoke, "You seem spirited enough," there was an unnatural pause, the silence biting at the room, "To be of use to me."

The Mandarin gestured to his entourage, whom seemed to materialize out of thin air, all brandishing automatic weapons and loaded down with tactical gear that no small paramilitary organization should have access to.

Stark Industries body armor wasn't up for sale to just anyone, how the hell did these guys get access to it?

The soldiers unlocked the cell, overpowered Stark's attempts at resisting, clapped manacles around his wrists, and shooed him back out to stand before the Mandarin. And without a word, the Mandarin turned on his heel and walked out the door.

Tony Stark, momentarily confused by the lack of verbal interaction soon found himself wondering who decided it'd be funny to kick him in the back of the knees and put a bag over his head.

Oh, right. The same guys who hijacked his plane and kept him pent up in a damp, moldy basement dungeon in some caste in the jungle of presumably China.

'To be of use to me' was probably just the code word for "Put a bag over Mr. Stark's head, drag him out into the bushes, and put a bullet through his brain."

Goddamnit.

* * *

Back in the United States, it'd been two long months since the 'death' of Tony Stark. And for a week or so, the world mourned the loss of an icon. But after the hubbub passed, the world shifted its gaze to other things of importance - like the city's new vigilante who'd overnight become something of an elusive media darling. Pictures of the wall crawling hero were nothing more than shaky footage captured on cell phones, or pictures that required such cropping to actually see the figure that individual pixels were visible.

And in a way, Pepper Potts was alright with this. She'd rather see headlines pertaining to a lunatic in a bug mask catapulting across the rooftops then dozens of stories going on and on about the terrible loss sustained with Tony Stark's untimely passing.

It was almost...surreal. For a man so much larger than life, to be so easily swept under the rug by the masses. But yet, every day she was reminded of him as she came into work. Everyday when she walked past the stylized letters of his last name spelled out in letters close to three feet high, every day when she found herself walking into _his office_, and settling into _his desk_ behind _his computer_.

When they'd first suggested that she be promoted up to CEO, well, there had been a mixture of emotions.

Fear, being the primary one. To go from being the personal assistant to the CEO of Stark Industries to actually beingthe CEO of Stark Industries was a major jump in responsibilities. But the board assured her with their golden words that they would handle things, that they'd put things up to vote soon enough and elect a new head for the company.

And yet, the whole thing felt like a massive betrayal. To take projects that Tony formerly had kept a close hand and have the board bring them out, slap a new coat of paint on them and give them to her for approval. Not being the maestro of mechanics that Tony was she had to take things from face value, and try to imagine what he would do in the situation.

Would he take the whole thing back to the drawing board on account of possible faults in the design?

Yes.

Would Stark Industries be able to take the whole XR-3 series, shelve it, and fail to fulfill the promises of their contract? If Tony was around to personally oversee the project, to go up to the military brass, invite them in for drinks and explain the whole situation - and somehow get them to extend the time available to allow for revamps.

But she wasn't Tony Stark. She wasn't a genius with mechanics, she wasn't some savant when it came to technology, she wasn't the man who built his first circuit board at the age of four.

They had fought her tooth and nail when she'd even implied that the designs might be anything less than the definitive future of aerial warfare. Hell, she'd even called in Rhodey, all the way from his infinitely more important obligations just so he could take at the look at the blueprints with her.

He'd been as helpful as he could, reassured her that everything seemed squared away - and then more or less admitted that he only knew how to fly planes, not necessarily put them together. Still, his encouragement was infinitely more reassuring than the board's adamant assurance that the design was ready for production.

And so she'd signed her name on the line, and the XR-3 was ushered along.

And now this. Months of work, a planned display at the Expo - and everything ruined because a Russian decided to destroy the prototype after making a show of breaking into the main offices to run off with some of Tony's (formerly) secure files. They couldn't even trace the theft because it'd been a direct tap.

Damnit, what would Tony do?

What would Tony do? That was a joke, he'd probably just crack a joke about the whole thing and then just move on to his next pet project. 'So what if someone else managed to get a hold of our tech,' he say, 'It'll all be old news by the end of the year anyway, you worry too much, Pep.'

* * *

Damnit, what would Pepper do?

Wait, why was he asking himself that question? Was he just feeling guilty all of a sudden?

It wasn't like he had much choice. He either followed along with the Mandarin's demands to supply his goons with some fantastic new doomsday weapon and live to see another day, or he got slowly gutted like a fish for his insolence. So he'd followed along - which hadn't done him any favors with his house guest - the guy followed instructions without more than a half-hearted grunt, but his work ethic and craftsmanship was outstanding for a man likely living on starvation rations in a dank underground cellar transformed into a semi-functional workshop.

Finally, after about the...third week? It was either the third week or the fourth week - Tony honestly couldn't keep the days straight anymore - since the Mandarin had so politely moved Tony from his damp dungeon to his damp underground workshop. Eitherway, it'd been three (or four) weeks of near silent, constant, work and finally, Tony had had enough. Okay, maybe it had been three days and he was just exaggerating, but his friend had been more or less silent bar required conversation. Hell, Tony didn't even know the guy's name.

He slid his welding mask up, glancing over at his working partner. He couldn't see his 'friend's' eyes on account of his own welding goggles, but he could still catch the slight shift in the man's demeanor as he powered down the welding gear. Tony was the first to speak (obviously), "So...you got a name? Family? A dog back home?"

No response from Mr. Talkative.

"Look, if you're pissed off at me about something - just say it. Because I can't honestly spend much longer cooped up in here with you giving me the silent treatment," Tony concluded.

"Yinsen," the man says only after letting the silence fully perforate Stark, "My name is Yinsen."

"Holy shit," Tony gleams, "You do talk!"

Yinsen chuckles, "Yes, it would seem so."

"Y'know what, Mr. Yinsen?" Tony asks, rhetorically - asking is just a convenience, "I think we've made enough progress for today, let's cut things short," he pries of his heavy welding gloves, tossing them aside, "After all, Rome wasn't built in a day - and Caesar had a hell of alot more workers than just us two."

"So, you're actually going through with it," Yinsen said, "You're actually going to build him a weapon."

"Look, I'm not too sure about you, but where I come from - you don't fuck with guy running a terrorist organization," Tony answers, "And besides, even if I give him a hundred weapons, this guy isn't anything but a spec on the map. He's like a taller Kim-Jong Un, he's all bite but no teeth."

"But you're giving him the teeth," Yinsen counters.

Tony whirls around, tensing as if ready to lash out. He's known Yinsen's name for all of forty-seconds and already he's regretting encouraging conversation, "I'm giving him what he wants so I keep breathing. I've got people I want to get back to, things I still want to do with my life. If all of that's too complicated for you, then I'm sincerely sorry."

Yinsen only grunts, "And how will you be able to face them when you've traded the lives of others for your own? That's all you've done," Yinsen pauses a moment, "You'll have given the Mandarin a weapon of terror, a device that will result in nothing but death - how much is your life worth, Mr. Stark?"

Tony isn't even sure of how to respond, the words get caught in his throat and Yinsen starts riddling off numbers-

"Fifty innocent lives?"

"A hundred?"

"Two-hundred?"

"Three-hundred?"

Tony can't remember how their conversation ended, he just knows that when he lays his head down on his dirty cot he regrets every word. He thinks that he remembers Yinsen saying five hundred before he snapped at the older man, letting loose a stream of self-soothing profanity before finding his own dark corner to hole up in. In his head he rolls over the arguement over-and-over, trying to figure out someway to spin it so that his side of the fight is the right one.

Yinsen's crazy, he decides. The old man's simply gone bonkers from being down in this dingy old place and that's that. If he had any shred of rational he'd have escaped by now, or done as Tony's doing and just give the Mandarin what he wants.

At some point, Tony can hear Yinsen's light snoring from the other side of the room and he decides to get up. It's dark, but then again, it's always dark in the workshop. Pushing aside his pile of disgusting rags, Tony gives his eyes the moments they need to adjust before he gets up. He manages to find a couple scraps of paper that doesn't have specifications for a missile on it, gets his hands on a trio of pencils with semi-intact erasers and acquires a candle to work by. He spreads his paper out on the workbench, brushing aside half-assembled/half-disassembled components before going to work.

* * *

It's 1988, and at ten years old Tony's head is still spinning about the awesomeness that was Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. He sits down everyday and scribbles out plans and specifications for his own armored suits. Eventually he realizes the impracticalities of having an armor that stands almost as tall as a skyscraper and decides to try something completely different - it'll be more difficult, but he decides to try something smaller.

He'll design a suit, something that would fit a man around a man, like a suit of medieval armor. He works haphazardly at it, imagining innovations and weapons ideas for his dream armor. After a few dozen hours of work, he shows it to his father, and his old man nods, chews on his pipe and sends him on his ten-year old way with a few suggestions scrawled on the edge of the paper in tight, constrained script.

Tony takes the suggestions to heart, spending another string of afternoons redesigning the armor to the best of his ten year old ability, putting more thought into how the operator would actually move and dialed back on the aesthetics a bit in favor of more utilitarian utility. But of course, like any good knight, he'd need a good color scheme.

Bold crimson with gold trim seemed suitably heroic.

* * *

When Yinsen finally roused himself, he expected to find Stark still balled up in the corner snoring. Instead he found Anthony Stark hunched over the workbench muttering to himself and making rapid edits to a yellowed piece of rough paper.

Yinsen pauses momentarily, finding a different sheet of paper casually tossed aside on a different workbench. He picks the paper up, noting what appears to be a man in a sleek suit of armor, judging by the wispy clouds sketched behind the man and his overall body posture, he is apparently supposed to be flying.

What the hell was Stark doing, drawing a comic strip?

The inventor finally noticed that he wasn't the only person in the room who was awake, and grinned over his shoulder at Yinsen, "Oh, hey, you're up. I've got something to show you."

"If it's more cartoons, I'll - I'll pass."

"Oh, you found that," Tony says a bit sheepishly, "That's just the concept drawing. No, what I've got here," he slapped the paper he was so furiously working on moments prior, "Is something a little more...practical."

"Practical?" Yinsen asked.

Tony just nods, "Yeah, like something I could build here. Something I could get working if the Mandarin would be so kind as to pick a few things up for me. That kind of practical."

Yinsen finally wills his feet to move, standing by the bench as he adjusts his glasses, observing the much more detailed technical drawings laid out before him. The overall design was infinitely more crude than the heroic figure flying through the sky he found earlier. The armor is larger, heavier, and the faceplate looked more like an intimidating skull than anything else. And while the previous sketch was framed around a sleek figure, this new behemoth had visible external weaponry attached.

"You plan to build this?" Yinsen asked after a long moment pondering the design.

"Yeah, that's the idea," Tony concluded, "We build this, we bust out, and you quit insinuating that I'm an unfeeling asshole only out to save his own skin."

"And what about the Mandarin? What will we do about him?"

"Look, I'm not some White Knight of good, alright? I'm not the military, I don't take down terrorists for a living. If we run into the him on our way out, ask me again, and we'll see where it goes. But assuming we don't, we just focus on running like hell."


	3. Iron Man is Born

He's barely a quarter of the way through preparations on the 'Iron Man' as they've affectionately dubbed it when The Mandarin decides to swing by for a visit. Despite knowing in the back of his mind that this sort of thing was destined to happen from the start, it was still a shock when the bearded Chinese man dressed like Jesus strolled in.

Yinsen and Stark had their backs pressed against the cold wall of the workshop, an array of automatic weapons trained on them as The Mandarin slowly mad his way around the room before picking up one of the half-finished components.

Of course, he picked up the faceplate - which in no way, shape or form, resembles a missile component. Tony mentally kicks himself for leaving it somewhere easily accessible.

"What is this?" he inquires, holding up the skull-like piece of metal for Stark to see.

The inventor tosses an aside glance Yinsen's way, acknowledging that lying will probably put them both in a shallow grave - and that by telling the truth will put them in an equally shallow grave. So it's time to give him his sales pitch, "It's better than a missile."

"Better than a missile?" The Mandarin asks, "What could be better than an infamous Stark-designed missile?"

"A Stark-designed suit of armor," Stark countered.

"What do you think I am? Some sort of medieval knight? I do not need your armor."

"No. But one soldier with a suit like this - will be worth a hundred missiles. He'd be unstoppable."

"Unstoppable?"

"Unstoppable," Tony answered, conviction in his voice.

"Very well then," The Mandarin said, "But I give you until the end of the weak to deliver me a working suit of this so-called, 'unstoppable armor'."

"Three days, that's all we have."

"Plenty of time, Yinsen."

"Plenty of time? You can't be serious-"

"I'm serious, just trust me. We'll get out of here."

Three days came and went, long hours of labor put into a project that might not even get off the ground. In a way, Tony had to admit that the whole thing was insane. He was essentially slapping together a man-sized mechanized exoskeleton with as many weapons as he could attach successfully and then praying the damn thing would hold together long enough that he could fight his way through a solid wall of The Mandarin's goons and get both himself and Yinsen to sweet-sweet freedom.

Now fully strapped into the armor with Yinsen doing the final checks to confirm everything was operational, it all started to hit home. He either died here - or he escaped to live another day.

Fantastic.

"Yinsen, we good?" he asked, the older man stooped over the heavy array of batteries hooked to the back of the suit. As much as he imagined the advantages of using something more powerful - like a miniaturized arc reactor - the equipment to manufacture one simply wasn't available and the time wasn't either. So they'd made do with what they had, which resulted in the crude construct loaded down with a half-dozen decrepit car batteries. Far from optimal, but then again, no part of their current plight was too friendly to their cause.

"Everything appears to be working."

"Alright, I'll clear the way - you follow my lead," Tony said, taking his first step in their first - and last - hope. Now was really not the best time to realize the whole thing was a bit too top heavy and he nearly collapsed only to catch himself at the last second, "Unless I fall on my face. Listen, if I go down - you keep going. You get out of here."

"But-"

He held up an armored hand, "Please, I'm trying to be heroic here, just let it happen. This is a once in a lifetime occurrence."

A tiny smile graced Yinsen's worn face, "Of course."

Returning the grin with one of his own, Tony slammed the faceplate of his helmet down. Replacing Tony Stark was the foreboding visage of Iron Man, "Let's do this."

Stomping over to the simple iron door barring his progress, bringing up a foot before kicking the heavy door open.

Striding out into the hallway, the Iron Man was greeted by a goon with a compact submachine gun. The man pulled the trigger, a burst of fire rounds harmlessly flattening against heavy armor before the Iron Man brought back his hand - and backhanded the soldier into the wall. His body impacted with a sickening crunch and he went still. The Iron Man glanced back at Yinsen, "Come on."

The man was barely out into the hallway when a small squad of The Mandarin's men rounded the far corner. Feeling quite safe at the other end of a long hallway, the men settled into a position to open fire. The Iron Man brought up his arm, "Cover your ears!"

A rocket that was mounted on the Iron Man's armored forearm fired, streaking down the hallway, and impacting against the back wall. The gunmen were sent spiraling through the air in an explosion of masonry and debris.

Turning back towards Yinsen, who wasn't taking the gratuitous violence as well Stark was, the inventor taking the moment to bellow, "Yinsen, we're getting out of here, we need to move!"

Nodding, the man started scurrying down the hallway towards hopeful freedom with the Iron Man stomping along after him.

Fighting his way through several more rounds of goons, though their numbers were ever-increasing as they reached ever closer to their goal, Iron Man continued to cut a bloody swath through anyone who stood in his or Yinsen's way.

"This is it. Sprint to the finish," Tony encouraged, "You're doin' great, we're almost there."

Raza had figured Stark would wind up another corpse after his promise of an 'invincible' suit of armor. Judging from the broken bodies of his men, Raza had to admit that perhaps Stark was onto something with what he said.

Of course, with Raza himself armed with a rocket launcher manufactured by Stark Industries - he wasn't too worried. His weapon was built in a factory, Stark's armor was build in a dingy basement over a span of three days.

Stepping out to blast the two escapees to oblivion, Raza lined up his sights on Stark's armored back and pulled the trigger.

"Stark!" Yinsen shouted, drawing the inventor's attention to the rocketeer trying to blow them both to kingdom come. Recognizing the threat to the unarmored Yinsen, Stark gave the man a hearty shove - hopefully enough to get him clear of the blast radius. Which gave Stark about half a second to try to clear the area himself.

While he managed a solid three steps towards safety, it wasn't enough to evade a high-quality anti-armor warhead tearing into the elegant stonework of The Mandarin's castle. The blast knocked the Iron Man off his feet and onto his face. Forcing himself up onto his elbows, he could just see Raza attempting to reload his weapon through the disorientation stemming from a close call with one of his own rockets.

Stark brought up his arm, arming his last remaining rocket. Of course, with the whole world still swaying and a phantom ringing in his ears - drawing a bead was proving to be a bit more challenging than Tony wanted to admit.

It became a game of who would get on target first.

Pulling the trigger on his own rocket, Tony fired first and immediately rolled to the side to try to evade Raza's likely follow-up shot. Raza pulled the trigger a mere moment after Stark did before being consumed in a fireball as Tony's rocket hit home. Raza's rocket impacted where Stark had been laying previously - sending the inventor tumbling back through the air. He crashed into one of The Mandarin's fancy statues of himself, causing the elegant stonework to collapse in the middle and fall on top of his armored chest.

"Stark? Are you alright? Stark!"

Tony coughed, "Agh - Christ. Yeah, yeah - I'm okay," he grunted, out as he started to shove the heavy piece of carved stone off, "I just think I - ow - might've cracked a couple dozen ribs or something. Just lemme catch my breath. Two second time-out."

"No time," Yinsen urged, "He's here."

"Who?"

"The Mandarin."

Tony let his head loll back to rest against the floor, "Ah, fuck."

By the time Tony was able to push himself to his armored feet, The Mandarin had plenty of time to get situated on the far side of the room. Standing tall in his green and gold robes, The Mandarin paused to adjust one of his rings, giving Stark little more than a glance as the armored man struggled to his feet.

Finally on his feet, Stark had to recognize the fact that aside from a rather impressive collection of rings - he was unarmed. Considering that the inventor was wearing a crudely-built, powered exoskeleton that had presently protected him from everything from bullets to anti-tank rockets, he was admittedly, a bit cocky, "That's some nice bling you've got there, but unless you've got a howitzer stuffed up your skirt - I'd suggest you get out of my way, Mandarin."

The Mandarin smirked through his scraggly beard, "You think I need weapons to defeat you? In my hands I carry the strength to bring nations to their knees."

"Bullshit," Iron Man countered, drawing back an armored fist as he charged forward to strike down his adversary with a deadly punch, "You're just another arrogant bastard like all your kind."

The Mandarin simply brought up his hand, and from one of his rings shot a swirling vortex which knocked the armored hero flat on his back, sending him skidding across the smooth stone floor.

"You accuse me of arrogance when you yourself are so quick to underestimate me?" The Mandarin boasted, "And you must bear witness to the consequences of your actions."

The Mandarin turned to Yinsen, and raised his hand again. A different ring activated this time, subzero temperatures engulfing the older man - leaving him as little more than a frozen statue.

The Mandarin looked back at Tony, "Now do you understand?"

From a different ring, a powerful blast of energy struck the icy Yinsen in the chest - and he disintegrated into little more than dust. A stray breeze caught his dust-like remains and scattered them across the room.

"Now do you understand the power of The Mandarin?!"

Iron Man didn't reply, rising to his feet. Standing up to full height, he ignited the pair of flamethrowers attached to his armored forearms, and charged back at The Mandarin.

Coming just within range, the Iron Man pulled the triggers on his flamethrowers and unleashed a massive ball of flames. The Mandarin, not content to be incinerated so easily, summoned a powerful vortex of wind to beat back the fireball. From his opposite hand, he sent forth a surge of electricity - electricity that conducted quite well thanks to the heavy metal armor of his foe.

Screaming as the lightning ripped through his body, Iron Man fell against a nearby pillar for support. Fast running out of options and his whole body going crazy thanks to high voltage setting his nerve endings on fire, Stark drove a fist into the pillar. And then another.

Calling upon what strength the suit had remaining, he gave the pillar a solid shove.

The pillar groaned as it broke free and gravity took over. The Mandarin, having no major desire to get crushed under hundreds of pounds of stone halted his electrical assault and dashed out of the way. A heavy metal hand grabbed him by the front of his robe.

"This is for Yinsen," Stark snarled, drawing back his fist for a megaton punch.

But before he could finish with the attack, The Mandarin used one of his more dangerous rings. With a force close to four-hundred tons of TNT, a concussive blast hit Iron Man straight in the chest - sending the armored escapee flying back before a punch could be landed.

"I have wasted too much time with this pointless conflict," The Mandarin said, a laser emanating from one of his rings, and with a simple swipe of his wrist he cut the remaining pillars off at their bases, "Enjoy your tomb, Mr. Stark."

With that, The Mandarin fired a concussive blast at the ceiling - blowing a hole in the ceiling before summoning another vortex of air to ride out of the hole, leaving Iron Man to be buried in the collapsing remains of his fortress.

A massive dent caving in the chestpiece of his armor, Iron Man rose to his feet, staggering forward as his opponent fled. Unable to find a sufficiently witty response to shout in the face of The Mandarin's sudden exit, Stark realized that if he wanted to escape - he'd need to do something desperate.

As in fire up the pair of rockets attached to his boots desperate.

Stooping down, he pulled the safety pins from the rockets, said a silent prayer, and fired up the boots.

Thankfully, he didn't explode instantly as he had feared.

With the ceiling collapsing around him, he began to ascend. Slowly at first, but eventually he started to gain speed as he neared the hole in the roof. Clearing the gap, for the first time in four months - Tony Stark was a free man again.


End file.
